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Sayadaw U Thittila

Biodata

Sayadaw U Thittila

Agga Maha Pandita, Sangha Mahanayaka

( 1896 / 3-1-1997 )

( Written By Mrs. Claudine W. Iggleden in 1985 )

The Venerable Sayadaw U

Thittila, Aggamahapandita, author of the following

talks on the Buddhist Teaching, was born in 1896 in the

town of Pyawbwe, central Burma, the centre of a rice

growing district.

His father died when he was only three years old.

When he was nine his elder and only brother died, and

when he was fourteen his elder and only sister also died.

His mother married again, a physician, but his stepfather,

too, died later. However, at the young age of seven or

eight years he was even then regularly frequenting the

local monastery, the Padigon Vihara, almost daily.

where he and a friend were taught certain scriptures by

the much respected and learned incumbent

there, Sayadaw U Kavinda. By the age of ten he was

learning to recite certain suttas, and by the age of fifteen

when he was ordained a samanera he already knew by heart the primer

to Abhidhamma studies, the Abhidhammatthasangaha, also the Mahasatipatthana

Sutta and Kaccayana's Pali Grammar. It was, though, at the age of twelve when histeacher, the Ven. U Kavinda, took him to Mandalay to hear a sermon on Abhidhamma

that he made the decision to become a bhikkhu. His full ordination at the age of

twenty eventually took place much further south in lower Burma, at Moulmein in

1916, on which occasion Sayadaw U Okkantha was his preceptor. Prior to that, when

he was still fifteen, he and three other young samaneras went with their same first



teacher to live in the forest for the practice of meditation. They spent eight months

there, and lived amongst wild creatures of many kinds including large snakes.

It was not long after that he entered the Masoyein Monastery College at

Mandalay. There, after intensive studies under the tuition of his second teacher and

hard task master, Sayadaw U Adiccavamsa, he was selected from among an entry of five thousand candidates as the Pathamakyaw Scholar of all Burma in 1918. This

success merely aroused in him the resolve to train and study for a further exceedingly

strenuous long period in order to enter for the highest of all monastic examinations,

the Panyattisasanahita (Mandalay). In 1923, of the one hundred and fifty entrants for

that examination only four passed, of which he was one. Over the years since then the

questions set for that examination have gradually been modified so that the possibility

of attaining a pass is slightly greater than in those earlier days, and there are fewer and

fewer now who know of the extremely high qualifications required in order to have

been successful in those previous times. As a result of his studies for that achievement

he could memorize stanzas by hearing them read once, and he had of necessity to

memorize a total of fifteen volumes from theTipitaka to enable entry for the oral

section alone. His success accorded him the right to appointment as the head of a

monastery of three hundred bhikkhus, even at that relatively young age, as the result

of which he became head of the education department and school at a monastery

specially founded in Rangoon for his teacher, the Ven. Adiccavarnsa. and himself.

Some few years later, in 1933, he went to India where he spent a year

at Santiniketan studying English and Sanskrit, following which period he journeyed to

Ceylon with the aim of studying English. Unfortunately, however, due to ill health

because of wrong feeding, coupled with the failure of his plans to come to fruit, he

had to reconsider this original idea and in due course returned to India to stay

at Adyar . It was at Adyar that he eventually had the opportunity to learn English from

English people, and at the same time acquire a basic knowledge of some of the

manners and customs with which he was not acquainted.

During his time in India he was elected president of the South India Buddhist

Associations, and he also undertook the management of the Buddhist Free Elementary

School at Perambur . In an appreciation by members of the South India Buddhist

Associations, dated 7th May 1938 at Madras, it records that since the founding of theSociety in South India in 1903 many bhikkhus and missionaries had visited them,

' ...... but no one has evinced such selfless and untiring interest in the cause of the

revival of Buddhism in South India as you have done in your short stay of four years.'

The appreciation continues by saying that he was well known to Buddhists

of Bangalore, Kolar, Wallajah, Wanniveda, Chakkra mallar, Konjeevaram, etc.



To further improve his knowledge of English, and in particular to study English

educational methods and family upbringing and training of English children, he left

Adyar for England in the summer of 1938. Having all his life lived under British

colonial rule he was interested to learn at first-hand how the English lived and

behaved in their own land, and to observe whether any of the educational methods and

training of children might be of benefit to Burmese children at home. His knowledge

of English by the time of his arrival was fairly good, if limited, but sufficient for him

to accept an invitation by the then secretary of the Buddhist Society in London to give

a general talk on the Dhamma. This very first talk in England was also the very first

time he had ever addressed an English audience. His second talk, however, entitled

'World Fellowship Through Buddhism'. was given in France at the invitation of Sir

Francis Younghusband, president and founder of the World Congress of Faiths, and

took place at the Sorbonne University in Paris. Following those two talks he decided

that before accepting any further invitation to speak in public he should improve his

English, and so he took steps to attend a course at the London Polytechnic until March

1939.

The conditions for any bhikkhu in the West in those days were exceptionally

hard, bhikkhu-life being unheard of and unknown to the inhabitants of that part of the

world. With the outbreak of war in that year, apart from two most generous friends

with whom he first became acquainted in Adyar, Ven. U Thittila was left unsupported

in any way and quite penniless; he was in almost unheard of circumstances for any

member of the Sangha. Still undeterred, however, he did everything he possibly could

for the individuals suffering under wartime conditions, eventually finding support for

himself in various ways which included broadcasting on the Burma Service of theB.B.C. and joining the Burmese / English Dictionary committee of which Dr. Stewart

was the founder. During those war years, when the giving of public talks was

impossible and his quest for information regarding educational methods and family

training of children was at a standstill, he was friend and helper to very many, but few

indeed ever knew of the sometimes acute privations he had on occasions to endure.

As the war drew to a close he was gradually able to resume giving talks again

under various different auspices, including two separate series of seventeen talks each

to members of the Workers' Educational Association. He visited people in hospital,

inmates in prison, and through some helpful contacts he was able to have at last theopportunity to visit certain schools, at some of which he was invited to give talks. His

wish to observe how English children were brought up and trained by their parents

was then also made possible by the readiness of a few different families, who upon

introduction invited him to stay in their homes for that purpose. Of the children with

whom he was associated he was able to study in depth their school life and home

influence, and as he stayed with the families of differing religious backgrounds he was



able to augment his knowledge of not only the Western way of life but the conditions

to which many young people were subjected from a very early age.

So far as the Dhamma is concerned, perhaps the most outstanding feature was

his introduction of the Abhidhamma Pitaka (the psycho-ethical analysis of things in

their ultimate sense as against their conceptual form) to the West by way of commencing to teach the small manual, Abhidhammatthasangaha, to a class of

students interested in the Buddhist Teaching and who had specifically requested him

to deal with that section. For the very first time in the West the primer to the third

Pitaka was systematically taught for a consecutive period of over four years, and this

instruction became the bedrock and yardstick for those who sought to learn something

of the fundamental teaching of the Buddha. His patience and skill, also his great care

of his students in helping them to overcome their difficulties between the Western

way of considering religious and philosophical matters in comparison with the

Buddhist presentation of things, was evidence of the difference between a real teacher

and an academic instructor. He helped them, too, in any facet of their lives, being

frequently requested to give his advice which he never failed in offering.

In March 1949 the Sasana Kari Vihara in London was founded by a group of

nine Burmese kappiyas for the purpose of supporting the work of Ven. U Thittila in

England; thus for the first time since his arrival in the West he experienced something

nearer to the Eastern traditional support of the Sangha, and became no longer

dependent merely upon his own efforts for survival. His personal achievement in

teaching continued unabated, and in the two years from March 1949 to March 1951

records show that he carried out in excess of two hundred and fifty teaching

engagements, quite apart from fulfilling all the other types of duties which normally

fall to a bhikkhu in the ordinary course of events. Being then the only resident

bhikkhu in England, those other duties absorbed a very considerable proportion of his

time.

Unfortunately, because of the unavoidable floating nature of the Burmese

community in England, constant support for the Sasana Kari Vihara was never certain,

and in 1952 when Ven. U Thittila was invited to lecture on Abhidhamma at Rangoon

University to M.A. and B.A. students he decided to accept at a time when funds for

the vihara had become virtually insufficient to maintain even one bhikkhu. Thus hisdeparture for Rangoon, after fourteen years in what must almost at times have seemed

like wilderness conditions, left an irreplaceable gap in the lives of many of his English

students. However, they continued his Abhidhamma classes, studying on a revisionary

basis all that he had taught them since the commencement.

Although originally he accepted the university appointment for one year only,

his work there continued in the end for eight successive years. His very great learning



and undoubted skills in teaching were acknowledged during this period when, in

1956, he received the highest government award in that field by the conferring upon

him of the title Agga Maha Pandita. It was an honour which originally carried with it

some small annual material benefits for the receiver.

In 1959 he accepted an invitation from the Association for Asian Studies at theUniversity of Michigan, U.S.A., to lecture in America. Travelling all over the U.S.A.,

unattended by any dayaka or helper, encountering climates ranging from extreme cold

with deep snow to blazing sun with extreme heat, he spent nearly six months

delivering well over a total of one hundred and sixty lectures at various universities

and arranged meetings. This was the planned programme, but as a result of his talks

he found himself constantly the guest of many of the hospitable American people who

heard him speak, and the additional inquiries and personal questions arising from this

extra dimension greatly extended what was already a very demanding schedule. His

itinerary included a flight from Los Angeles to Hawaii, where at Honolulu University

he was requested particularly to give twelve talks, ten of them on Abhidhamma. And

it was while still in the American continent that he visited Toronto in Canada.

Over the years he has accepted three invitations at different times to go to

Australia, during which visits the practice of meditation and study of the text

of Dhammapadaranked high in interest. He has journeyed to Japan where he had the

opportunity to observe and discuss with Japanese Zen masters their methods and

training of Zen meditation students, and has also visited both Singapore and

Hongkong. On other occasions he has travelled for specific purposes to Indonesia,

Cambodia, Nepal, and more than once to Thailand, quite apart from passing through

that country many times in the course of other longer travels. In Europe, prior to 1960,

he had also upon invitation given talks in Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany,

Holland. Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and yet again in France many years after his

original first pre-war talk in 1938. In 1964, at the instigation of two of his English

Abhidhamma students, he accepted an invitation to visit England again to continue

teaching Abhidhamma. The form of teaching on that occasion, however, took on a

dual purpose, and in the two years that followed, as well as teaching the subject he

translated into English from the Pali, for the very first time that it had ever been done,

the second of the seven books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka, Vibhanga. It was published

by the Pali Text Society in 1969 under the title of The Book of Analysis.

Upon his return to Burma in 1966 he did not again leave for abroad until his two

recent visits to England, one in 1982 and again in 1983. At the very considerable age

of eighty-seven years, he yet again upon invitation conducted a course of weekly

classes during the summer months of 1983, dealing with the application of

Abhidhamma knowledge to ordinary everyday life.



During the years from 1966-1982 in Burma, due to his knowledge, evident

practice, practical experience and inevitable seniority in age, he became invited and

accepted the position of Ovadacariya (spiritual adviser or instructor) to the central

council of the Sangha Mahanayaka of the whole country, Burma; to the trustees of

the Shwedagon Pagoda, Sule Pagoda, Kaba Aye Pagoda and to most other well

known pagodas in Rangoon. He is also examiner for the well known Abhidhamma

Propagation Society in Rangoon.

The sparse information given in this extremely brief sketch of some of the main

events in the Sayadaw's life, confirms a remark made one day by an astrologer in

Mandalay who once happened to see the Sayadaw there when he was a young

samanera. The astrologer commented that only one tenth of anything that that

particular young bhikkhu did would ever become known. The difficulty in collecting

information is compounded by the fact that the Sayadaw very seldom speaks of

himself, or mentions his endless achievements in the vast field of his experiences.

Beneath his quiet and retiring bearing lies a profound depth of knowledge of the

Buddhist Teaching, and to spread this knowledge has been his great endeavour

throughout his life. He has striven, often in the face of surprising opposition, to carry

out his aim. Even his original idea to learn English and go to the West, met with an

opposition that made his initial departure a very difficult thing. Over the years since

the war he has taught and helped countless Western-born people, although of his

English pupils from the actual war years and just after, so many are now no more.

However, by those who still remember him during his fourteen years presence in

England, from 1938-1952, and who on subsequent visits have continued to receive

teaching and guidance from him, he is deeply regarded and with much gratitude.

As a skilled teacher, in accordance with the order of pariyatti, patipatti and

pativedha (learning, practice and realization), he has always been at pains to deal with

first things first. He has always realized that strangers, newcomers to the word

Buddhism, having been brought up and educated from childhood in a totally different

religious environment, would have absolutely no concept at all of the Buddhist

Teaching. His method, therefore, has been first to explain very simply and gradually

exactly what and who a Buddha is. Once such people have become acquainted with

some knowledge and a correct idea of the nature of a Buddha, he later, still in very

simple terms, gains the further interest of his listeners by the very reasonableness andlogic of what he has to say in connection with right living in ordinary everyday life,

and what in accordance with Buddhist teaching is required if one is to improve oneself

morally, intellectually and spiritually. He always speaks to people at their level of

appreciation and interest, feeding them slowly with information that will build their

confidence. Like a wise farmer, he tills the soil before sowing the seed. He prepares

the ground; then, selecting suitable seed for the varying soils he plants carefully at the



proper season, realizing that to use the same seed in all the differing soils would be

unsuitable and unproductive.

On recognizing some people's almost total ignorance of the Dhamma, the

Sayadaw has never been dismayed; he has never ever considered abandoning any

mission on encountering such utter lack of comprehension, but actually striven all theharder to offer to those individuals something which could act as a next step for them,

something which could serve as an aid to movement in the right direction. Knowing

that morality is the soil in which development and understanding grow, he has sought,

always, to introduce, maintain and increase people's knowledge of, and tendency to

practise, at least the basic five precepts in their ordinary life.

And so, dealing with first things first, he will speak to the uninformed of right

thought, right speech and right action in their ordinary everyday life. As he says, 'How

we think, speak, behave and react when we have come away from meditation centres

and returned to everyday life, is the clue as to how far, if at all, we have actuallyimproved or advanced morally and mentally. Is our annoyance at things, our anger,

less; are we more kindly, better behaved, more considerate towards others? Is our

greed for the things we like and try to get hold of in everyday existence, is that greed

really less?'

Approaching his ninetieth year the Sayadaw is still active and teaching, at the

same time making available to others his great knowledge and vast experience of

practice under conditions which none but the most highly disciplined and principled

could have ever emerged unscathed morally or mentally. The inflexibility of his

determination as a very young person to learn every aspect of the Buddhist Teaching

absolutely thoroughly, and his inflexibility to live always appealing to the highest

within himself, has enabled the spreading of the true Dhamma to reach large numbers

in the world who otherwise may never have heard of it, nor had the chance to meet

one of its most genuinely humble, compassionate and dedicated exemplars, one of its

most profoundly learned exponents.

Written by C. W. Iggleden

England 1985

P.S.: The Most Venerable Sayadaw passed away in Myanmar ( Burma ) , on January

the 3rd , 1997, at the age of 100.

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1. The more we understand the law of Kamma the more we see how careful we must be of our acts,

words and thoughts, and how responsible we are to our fellow beings. Living in the light of this

knowledge, we learn certain lessons from the doctrine of Kamma.

2.

Knowing that the Law is our great helper if we live by it, and that no harm can come to us if we work

with it, knowing also it blesses us just at the right time, we learn the grand lesson of patience, not to

get excited, and that impatience is a check to progress. In suffering, we know that we are paying a

debt, and we learn if we are wise, not to create more suffering for the future. In rejoicing, we are

thankful for its sweetness, and learn, if we are wise, to be still better. Patience brings forth peace,

success, happiness and security.

3.

The law being just, perfect, it is not possible for an understanding person to be uneasy about it. If we

are uneasy and have no confidence, it shows clearly that we have not grasped the reality of the law.

We are really quite safe beneath its wings, and there is nothing to fear in all the wide universe except

out own misdeeds. The Law makes man stand on his own feet and rouses his self-confidence.

4. Confidence strengthens, or rather, deepens our peace and happiness and make us comfortable,

courageous; wherever we go the Law is our protector.

5.

As we in the past have caused ourselves to be what we now are, so by what we do now will our

future be determined. A knowledge of this fact and that the glory of the future is limitless, gives us

great self-reliance, and takes away that tendency to appeal for external help, which is really no help

at all. ‘Purity and impurity belong to oneself, no one can purify another" says the Buddha.

6.

Naturally, if we realize that the evil we do will return to strike us, we shall be very careful lest we do or say or think something that is not good, pure and true. Knowledge of Kamma will restrain us from

wrongdoing for others’ sakes as well as for our own.

7.

The more we make the doctrine of Kamma a part of our lives, the more power we gain, not only to

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direct our future, but to help our fellow beings more effectively. The practice of good Kamma, when

fully developed, will enable us to overcome evil and limitations, and destroy all fetters that keep us

from our goal, Nibbána.

8.

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